I came across an October 10, 1933 article titled “Nazi Plan to Kill Incurables to End Pain; German Religious Groups Oppose Move”published in The New York Times. The NYT reported:

The Ministry of Justice … explaining the Nazi aims regarding the German penal code, today announced its intentions to authorize physicians to end the sufferings of the incurable patient … in the interest of true humanity …”

Wartime, Adolf Hitler suggested, “was the best time for the elimination of the incurably ill.”Many Germans did not want to be reminded of individuals who did not measure up to their concept of a “master race.”The physically and mentally handicapped were viewed as “useless” to society, a threat to Aryan genetic purity, and, ultimately, unworthy of life. At the beginning of World War II, individuals who were mentally retarded, physically handicapped, or mentally ill were targeted for murder in what the Nazis called the “T-4,” or “euthanasia,” program.

[ … ]

Despite public protests in 1941, the Nazi leadership continued this program in secret throughout the war. About 200,000 handicapped people were murdered between 1940 and 1945.

The T-4 program became the model for the mass murder of Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and others in camps equipped with gas chambers that the Nazis would open in 1941 and 1942. The program also served as a training ground for SS members who manned these camps. [Emphasis added]

Where did the idea of Euthanasia come from?

A few proposals to legalize euthanasia were made in the United States and Germany during the latter portion of the nineteenth century. However, it was not until after World War I that euthanasia advocacy began in earnest. In 1920, two highly respected German academics, Karl Binding, a law professor, and Alfred Hoche, a physician, wrote Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, which advocated euthanasia as a compassionate “healing treatment.” The authors argued that mercy killing should be permitted for three categories of patients upon request of competent patients or the families of the incompetent: the terminally ill or mortally wounded, people who were unconscious, and disabled people—particularly those with cognitive impairments. The book, which may have coined the term “right to die,” also promoted euthanasia of cognitively disabled people as a way of saving societal resources. [Emphasis added]

Fast forward to today.

There are two euthanasia programs that are legal in the United States of America.

The first was the January 22nd, 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum noted that under the Nazi T-4 program, “Handicapped infants and small children were also killed by injection with a deadly dose of drugs or by starvation. The bodies of the victims were burned in large ovens called crematoria.” In the United States the unborn and born after a failed abortion are killed by doctors using similar procedures and their body parts sold to the highest bidder.

The second and more recent phenomenon is the passage of legalization legalizing physician assisted death or PAD in six states and the District of Columbia.

According to Euthanasia.ProCon.org there are six states and the District of Columbia, the seat of the federal government, that have legalized physician assisted death.

QUESTION: How is euthanasia different from Physician Assisted Death? ANSWER: It’s not.

Physician-assisted suicide differs from euthanasia, which is defined as the act of assisting people with their death in order to end their suffering, but without the backing of a controlling legal authority.

The act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (such as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.

What is being done today in six states and the District of Columbia is no different than what was done in Nazi Germany. These six states and the District of Columbia have done what Nazi Germany did, legalize the killing of the infirm (euthanasia). The only difference is the industrial scale of those euthanized.

Paradoxically, none of the 2016 Republican Presidential frontrunners have taken an official position on the issue. While, the Democratic Platform is silent on euthanasia and assisted suicide, the front runners for the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination are both pro-euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.

It is also interesting that the District of Columbia and five of the six states that have legalized PAD were won by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential election.

Will we end up living in a society where life is so cheap that nobody cares that large numbers of human beings are dying? Are we already there?

The issue of freedom of speech was briefly in the headlines when Poland passed a law restricting the use of words associating it, as a nation and a people, with the Nazi Holocaust. The use of phrases like “Polish death camps” is now punishable under this new law. Members of the European Union do not have a First Amendment but they have two documents that address the rights of citizens to speak their minds.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, provides, in Article 19, that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

And the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), signed on 4 November 1950, guarantees a broad range of human rights to inhabitants of member countries of the Council of Europe, which includes almost all European nations. These rights include Article 10, which entitles all citizens to free expression. Echoing the language of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights this provides that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

To Americans, the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment may seem to be a simple demand of a country’s citizens, but in many cases, it is a luxury that does not exist outside of America.

As Americans, we are fortunate enough to have laws, or in this case amendments, that grant us as citizens certain rights that are meant to be upheld by our government. One of the most important amendments is the first: the right to speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition. To Americans, this may seem to be a simple demand of a country’s people, however in many cases, it is a luxury that only Americans have.

The countries without a First Amendment listed in the Iowa State white paper are: Afghanistan, China, India, Great Britain and South Korea.

Any American who ever questions whether the First Amendment is vital to protect free speech should just cast a glance across the Atlantic. Europeans share the same values we do—indeed, our concept of rights derives from European philosophers—and yet they often adopt misguided laws that circumscribe freedom of expression.

[ … ]

Poland is but the latest European country to ban freedom of expression it finds uncomfortable. Many of these speech codes and laws have to do with the trauma of the Nazi legacy, but others extend far beyond.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the Public Order Act 1986 prohibits the “expressions of racial hatred, which is defined as hatred against a group of persons by reason of the group’s colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.”

People have been fined and jailed both for expressing religious objections to the gay lifestyle or, at the other end, for displaying anti-religious bigotry.

In Germany, Holocaust denial is punishable by law. New hate speech rules, known locally as NetzDG and which came into full force last month, demand that social media giants promptly remove potentially illegal material, some of it within 24 hours of being notified, or face fines.

And France in 1990 passed a law that also made it a crime to deny the Holocaust.

Mr. Gonzalez quoted what U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said about Poland’s effort to limit freedom of speech. Secretary Tillerson stated:

The United States reaffirms that terms like ‘Polish death camps’ are painful and misleading. Such historical inaccuracies affect Poland, our strong ally, and must be combatted in ways that protect fundamental freedoms. We believe that open debate, scholarship, and education are the best means of countering misleading speech.

Secretary Tillerson’s comment can be applied to those who want to stifle freedom of speech in America.

Today Americans are witnessing the insidious global suppression of free speech. This suppression is based on concepts that were unheard of just a few years ago. Using words such as homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigot, misogynist, white privilege has caused colleges, universities, businesses, religious institutions, the media, governments and individuals to self-censor their speech. Those speaking out about social issues, Islam and government overreach have become criminals in countries such as Canada, France, Germany and Great Britain.

In the United States the military wing of the anti-free speech movement is Antifa.

Hashtag social media campaigns like #BlackLivesMatter has created a racial divide in America, #OccupyWallStreet has fomented class warfare and the #MeToo movement has chilled speech between men and women. #Resist has become the movement embraced by members of Antifa to stifle free speech, especially on college campuses like the University of California – Berkeley. Some even fear using gender specific words, like mankind, so as not to offend the gender confused. Absurd you say?

As Ayn Rand wrote:

The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.

President Trump is doing what he can to contest the uncontested absurdities of yesterday. But he is facing strong head winds from what has become known as “the swamp.” For you see the first right in the First Amendment is that Congress shall “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” President Trump is restoring the free exercise of religious liberty in via the Executive Branch of our government.

Without Judeo/Christian religious liberty there is no freedom of speech.

The more our Judeo/Christian values are rejected the more freedom of speech is restricted and outlawed. It is a slope we have been sliding down and its time to climb back up the mountain to regain our fundamental belief that “In God We Trust.”

A school district there has removed The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird from its reading list because the books “contain oppressive language” and “humiliated and marginalized students.”

Safe spaces, micro-aggression, trigger warnings…….where does the political correctness end?

Another famous novelist, George Orwell, would be laughing if he were alive to witness this absurdity. Orwell of course coined the term “thought police” in his classic book Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Consider these other “Orwellian” examples of political correctness:

The Washington State Corrections Department now refers to inmates as “students”, which means the infamous Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway – the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history – is a student at Walla Walla’s Washington State Penitentiary.

University of California students voted to ban the American flag from hanging in its main lobby because flags are “symbols of patriotism or weapons for nationalism.”

One of Mark Twain’s quips would seem to apply to those who advocate this nonsense: “Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

In a shocking policy announcement, Walgreens has now directed its stores to allow men full and unrestricted access to women’s restrooms in all of its 8,100 stores.

On Nov. 17, 2017, Walgreens distributed a memo stating, “All individuals have a right to use restroom facilities that correspond to the individual’s gender identity, regardless of the individual’s sex assigned at birth.”

The policy came as the result of being pressured by the ACLU of Southern California.

Since a similar public policy was announced by Target Stores, Inc. two years ago, dozens of women and children have been victimized by male predators inside Target stores.

Walgreens’ new policy could potentially result in female customers becoming victims of voyeurism, sexual assault and physical attack.

http://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/walgreens-men-in-womens-bathrooms-e1518218046491.png363640American Family Associationhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAmerican Family Association2018-02-09 18:14:262018-02-10 18:12:01Walgreens' new policy welcomes men into women's restrooms

Anyone wondering what Donald Trump would do to fill the pro-life promises of his campaign didn’t have to wait long to find out! In his first weekday on the job, the new White House started turning the page on eight deadly years of the Obama administration. After two terms of shipping American dollars to overseas groups like International Planned Parenthood, this president wasted no time pulling the plug, flipping the script on the pro-life Mexico City policy that Obama suspended.In a policy dating back to every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan’s, Donald Trump continued the tradition of blocking even a single U.S. cent from going to foreign groups that perform or promote abortion in other countries. But the administration wasn’t done. To the cheers of pro-lifers, this White House took a giant leap forward from even Presidents Bush and Reagan. For the first time ever, the administration didn’t just bring $600 million in taxpayer funding under the authority of the pro-life rule, but $8.8 billion from the Departments of State, Health and Human Services, and Defense. That’s almost 15 times more money flowing through the abortion ban than President Bush’s policy!

Liberals were apoplectic. The U.S. is ending its global health outreach, they cried! People are going to die without America’s help. As usual, it was fake news. President Trump didn’t zero out international aid — he expanded it. For once, hurting, sick people don’t have to compete with the abortion lobby to get real care. Dollars that would have been spent propping up the culture of death are finally going to projects that improve lives – not take them. But don’t take our word for it. Take the State Department’s.

A year into the Left’s sky-is-falling predictions, this new approach to foreign aid is working. And well. In a report just released by Secretary Rex Tillerson’s agency, the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance is having the desired effect. Not only is it helping to tear down the financial stronghold that groups like Planned Parenthood have on other nations, but it’s sending a message to the world that America recognizes that all human beings have inherent worth and dignity. If President Trump wanted to discourage international abortion, liberals say he has. A former member of USAID’s population fund, lamented the “huge, huge chilling effect” the White House’s policy is having on abortion activism. “I would say, yeah, unfortunately, it does work.”

If there’s one thing both sides can support, it’s that the Trump administration has managed all of this without any disruption to our aid — one of the Left’s biggest (and unfounded) complaints. Liberals were sure that organizations all around the world would end their partnership with the U.S. government if they had to abide by the new pro-life rules. Hardly. Out of the 733 groups that provide foreign aid, only four refused to comply – including (not so surprisingly) abortion giants Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International. So far, they’re the only ones more interested in destroying humans than helping the ones in need.

Meanwhile, if anyone’s opinion matters, isn’t it the people we’re trying to serve? After two terms of hitting other countries over the head with abortion propaganda, a lot of nations are relieved by the change. From the Philippians to Latin America, our neighbors have cheered the move. Carmel Nisha Pius Franco, director of a pro-life organization in India, pointed out:

“Indian women need life, dignity, education and empowerment, not abortion. We have been exploited through decades-long population control propaganda which has resulted in at least 300 million abortions (16 million abortions being performed in India in just one year) and dangerous sub-replacement fertility rate. Americans do not want their hands in the blood of innocent children killed in India. Yes, we need to deal with development issues, but not by killing our children. Thanks to President Trump for setting things right …”

The message from this White House is simple: promoting health means protecting life. And years from now, who knows how many children will be alive to prove us right?

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

Judicial Watch has released 29 pages of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents related to the June 27, 2016, tarmac meeting between former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton. The documents show that FBI officials were more concerned about leaks than the actual meeting itself. The new documents also show that then-FBI Director Comey seemed to learn of the meeting from news reports.

The new documents were obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:16-cv-02046)) filed after the Justice Department failed to comply with a July 7, 2016, FOIA request seeking:

All FD-302 forms prepared pursuant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her tenure.

All records of communications between any agent, employee, or representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding, concerning, or related to the aforementioned investigation. This request includes, but is not limited to, any related communications with any official, employee, or representative of the Department of Justice, the Executive Office of the President, the Democratic National Committee, and/or the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.

All records related to the meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on June 27, 2016.

The new FBI documents show FBI officials were concerned about a leak that Bill Clinton delayed his aircraft taking off in order to “maneuver” a meeting with the attorney general. The resulting story in the Observer is seemingly confirmed and causes a flurry of emails about the source of the article. FBI official(s) write “we need to find that guy” and that the Phoenix FBI office was contacted “in an attempt to stem any further damage.” Another FBI official, working on AG Lynch’s security detail, suggests instituting non-disclosure agreements. The names of the emails authors are redacted. There are no documents showing concern about the meeting itself.

The FBI originally informed Judicial Watch they could not locate any records related to the tarmac meeting. However, in a related FOIA lawsuit, the Justice Department located emails in which Justice Department officials communicated with the FBI and wrote that they had communicated with the FBI. As a result, by letter dated August 10, 2017, from the FBI stated, “Upon further review, we subsequently determined potentially responsive documents may exist. As a result, your [FOIA] request has been reopened…”

On June 27, 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with former President Bill Clinton on board a parked plane at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona. The meeting occurred during the then-ongoing investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s email server, and only a few days before she was interviewed the Justice Department and FBI. (Judicial Watch filed a request on June 30 that the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General investigate that meeting.)

The tarmac meeting also came just days before former FBI Director James Comey held the July 5, 2016, press conference in which he announced that no charges would be filed against Mrs. Clinton. In his subsequent, May 3, 2017, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey said the Lynch-Clinton tarmac meeting was the “capper” among “a number of things” that had caused him to determine that Department of Justice leadership “could not credibly complete the investigation and decline prosecution without grievous damage to the American people’s confidence in the justice system.”

“These new FBI documents show the FBI was more concerned about a whistleblower who told the truth about the infamous Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting than the scandalous meeting itself,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The documents show the FBI worked to make sure no more details of the meeting would be revealed to the American people. No wonder the FBI didn’t turn these documents over until Judicial Watch caught the agency red-handed hiding them. These new documents confirm the urgent need to reopen the Clinton email scandal and criminally investigate the resulting Obama FBI/DOJ sham investigation.”

The past few weeks have been devastating for the Democratic Party, its reputation, and its standing among the American people. As a result of an endless stream of news reports and congressional actions, the American people have learned that the Democratic Party, in collusion with Hillary Clinton and Russian operatives, fabricated a dossier as a guarantee to keep an American citizen from being elected President of the United States. They learned that the FBI and the Department of Justice, while under the leadership of President Obama, promoted those fabricated misrepresentations while simultaneously protecting Mrs. Clinton from prosecution of her gross violations of federal secrecy laws in her mishandling of classified electronic information.

And as the milieu of corruption and malfeasance revealed itself, no evidence of the collusion Democrats claimed to have taken place between Russian operatives and the Trump Campaign appeared. On the contrary, the deeper Congress peeled into the issue, the more it appeared that the Democrats were colluding with the Russians to defeat Trump rather than the obverse.

On another front, Democrats worked to oppose a tax cut that would place millions of dollars back into the pockets of average Americans and their businesses. More offensively they recurrently minimized the importance of those newly found cash savings. Even as the Democrats foolishly decried the effects of the tax package as inconsequential, or painful to America’s middle class, the nation’s largest employers announced bonuses and increases in entry level wages. In response, Democrats took to the airwaves and social media, decrying the magnitude of those bonuses as “crumbs,” while the middle class they so adamantly claimed to defend considered those crumbs hugely significant.

The Democrats did not have to take such contrarian positions on any of these issues. In so doing, however, they positioned themselves as defenders of the Deep State and of its corruption. Worse yet for the Democrats, they showed themselves to be the very elitist ultra-rich against whom they claim to be advocating.

The fact is that the positions recently taken by Democrats are the result of a faction that has taken control of the Party’s direction and has steered it well away from the views of mainstream America; the Obama Wing of the Democrat Party. And what we are witnessing with every misguided Democratic argument, every attempt at stopping corruption because of its own protectionism, and every demeaning slight at the intelligence of the American people is the slow, protracted, and howling death cries of that Obama Wing.

The Obama Wing of the Democratic Party is a decidedly anti-American faction that has conflated its calls for workers’ rights and social mobility with a rabid anti-capitalistic position that disparages self reliance. It is a Wing claiming that nothing you can do is achievable on your own, (“It takes a village.”), but rather is facilitated and made possible only by the presence of government. It is a faction that effortlessly moves beyond the constraints of the law to suit its own self-propagation, doing so for two reasons. First because the law ought not apply to them since they know what’s best for the rest of us, and second, because, above all, it is important that they protect themselves against attacks from their political enemies.

You say these views are antithetical to the United States Constitution and to those foundational principles giving rise to the most exceptional nation in the history of earth? Why, yes! But since when are those documents and principles more important than the self-righteousness of the positions espoused by Obama Democrats?

From this attitude, we get a President who believes it is within his authority to decide when the Senate is or is not in session just so he can make a recess appointment. We get a President who shamelessly says that if Congress doesn’t solve a particular policy problem he will even though the Constitution never gave the President of the United States the authority to pass this nation’s laws. And we get a faction believing it is okay for the federal government to force people to purchase a product, even if they don’t believe they need it.

So far, the Obama Wing of the Democratic Party merely sounds like a typical liberal faction. But there’s more! This faction believes the United States is the source of great evils in the world rather than its most hopeful solution. In its Orwellian stance, it believes there is such a thing as leading from behind, and that such a thing ought not to be construed as cowardice. And it believes it is okay to abandon America’s allies in an attempt to appease its most rabid enemies.

It is also a faction believing that every social strife ought to be properly seen through the lens of blacks versus white. There can be no justice, says the Obama Wing of the Democratic Party, unless “white people” are struck down at the expense of “people of color,” concepts irreconcilably antithetical to human rights and civil justice.

Strangely, ever since the rise of the Obama Wing of the Democratic Party, the rank and file Democrat has felt it necessary to defend these espoused concepts. Instead of acknowledging the misguided and inherently hateful positions of this terrible epoch in American politics, they instead continue to defend it, hastening their descent into the quicksand of their amorality.

There is only one outcome for this wing and the path it has charted. But as long as the Democrats continue to defend it, we will continue to see its demise as a party of influence in the United States. Oh yes, it may make some progress in a midterm election here and there, and it will continue to make noise. But overall, its sphere of influence will continue to shrink, and its voice will become increasingly shrill.

The only question is, how painful and protracted will this stubborn and egoistic demise be. Maybe we can ask Congressman Gutierrez.

http://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/obama-organizing-for-action-e1518015550816.jpg371640Dr. Julio Gonzalezhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Julio Gonzalez2018-02-07 09:59:272018-02-07 09:59:27​The Death Of The Obama Wing Of The Democratic Party

Over a five year period, American taxpayers are billed more than $8 billion for the resettlement of thousands of foreign refugees every year, a new study finds.

In research conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), analysts concluded that annual refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers about $1.8 billion a year, and over five years, about $8.8 billion.

FAIR’s research found that of the $1.8 billion annual cost of resettling refugees in the U.S., about $867 million was spent on welfare.

The most recent Politifact story “fact-checking” President Trump is a perfect example of why no one should trust this organization — other than liberals looking to buttress their beliefs with partisan hackery. Sorry, it’s just really that bad.

This sort of breakdown can be done on fact-check after fact-check after fact-check. The assessment ranges from overtly biased negativity for Republicans and Trump and positivity for Democrats and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This is measurable below.

During the presidential campaign, Politifact rated well-known truth-purveyor Clinton as true or mostly true 51 percent of the time. Trump came in at a grudging 9 percent. Hillary was false or pants-on-fire false 14 percent of the time, while Trump was at whopping 61 percent.

These numbers alone are more than enough to convince conservatives about the veracity of Politifact. But a quick look at the most recent attack on Trump is just a glorious exposition on either purposeful deception or utter stupidity. (As a recovering journalist, my money is on purposeful deception.)

Politifact took this quote from President Trump’s State of the Union address to do their “fact-checking:”

“Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives…Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children.”

The first problem they found with it is this:

“Neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents can directly petition for an aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew, in-law relative or grandparent to come to the United States.”

Ummmm, right. That’s why it’s called “chain” migration, because it is not direct migration. One link leads to another which leads to another into an ever expanding universe of immigration off of the one — but not directly by the one. This is a great example of a favorite ploy of progressives; create straw men to knock down and look brilliant and so obviously right. But straw men are just that. No one is saying it is direct. It’s a chain.

The next problem comes in the following paragraph:

“Theoretically, one immigrant’s arrival in the United States could lead to the immigration of an aunt or uncle — if the first immigrant becomes a U.S. citizen and petitioned a parent, that parent could eventually become a U.S. citizen and petition his or her siblings.”

I don’t think “theoretically” means what they think it means. If it happens in real life, it is not theory. It is reality. And this indirect immigration happens constantly and is documented, usually being uncovered when an immigrant commits a crime, and they are discovered to be in the country through chain migration several steps removed from the original immigrant.

Aren’t you supposed to be Politifact? Suggestion: Work on using the right words.

Next problem, same as the first:

“…there are restrictions. No one can directly petition for an aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew, in-law relative or grandparent, according to USCIS.”

But an immigrant can bring his dad, who can then bring his brother, who can then bring his son and bingo-bango-bongo, you have an uncle and a cousin through chain migration from the original immigrant.

And finally:

“Trump’s statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.”

Except of course, it’s entirely true — factually. Impressions are not facts. This organization isn’t called Politimpression, it’s called Politifact. According to the facts (not theoreticals and not impressions) Trump’s statement is undeniably true. You can make the argument that it does not include every nuance of the immigration code — the speech was long enough — but it is factually wrong to call it false.

We’ll pass on Snopes, but the exact same problem is at work there. It is led and staffed by publicly known liberals and it does the same type of work as Politifact. In addition to the above example of how they arrive at a totally true statement being ruled mostly false, they cherry-pick what they fact-check, never going after Hillary Clinton’s endless lies or Barack Obama’s deceptions and errors, but most often fact-checking the non-controversial true things they say.

Liberals and Democrats can rely on Politifact to buttress their worldview. Moderates and conservatives should not waste their time or be sucked in. And if you still get your local paper, tell them to stop running Politifact.

In a remarkably frank admission that laid bare the stealth agenda behind global warming alarmism, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted during a February 2015 press conference in Brussels that the UN’s real purpose in creating climate fear is to end capitalism throughout the world:

This is the first time in human history that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally changing [getting rid of] the economic development model that has reigned since the Industrial Revolution.

The economic model to which she referred is free-market capitalism. A year earlier, Figueres revealed what capitalism must be replaced with when she bitterly complained that America’s two-party constitutional system is hampering the UN’s global climate objectives. She went on to cite China’s communist system as the kind of government America must have if the UN is to achieve its objectives. In other words, for the UN to have its way, America must be transformed into a communist nation.

Let that one sink in for a moment.

Figueres is not alone. Another high-level UN Marxist had comments of his own about the hidden agenda behind “climate change.” If you’re among those who believe progressives when they say all they’re trying to do is save the planet, what Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer had to say will leave your jaw on the floor.

In an unguarded statement that found its way into the public domain, Edenhofer, co-chair of the UN IPCC’s Working Group III, made this shocking admission on Nov. 14, 2010:

One must free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. [What we’re doing] has almost nothing to do with the climate. We must state clearly that we use climate policy to redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.

On the same date, Edenhofer added this:

Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with protecting the environment. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which [re]distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.

Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer, one of the UN’s top climate officials, effectively admitted that the organization’s public position on global warming is a hoax, and another senior UN official, Christiana Figueres, said in an official capacity that the United States must have a communist government for the UN to achieve its objectives.

Let all of that sink in for a moment.

Some wealthy and powerful elites in this country believe it’s not fair that billions of people in the world sleep on the ground in mud huts, while Americans sleep on soft mattresses in air-conditioned comfort. The progressive elites who feel that way also believe that a significantly greater portion of America’s wealth must therefore be “shared” (redistributed) to poor nations. Global wealth redistribution is the foremost tenet of communism, and those who advocate it are, by definition, communists, whether they are open about it or not.

The stunning pronouncements by Figueres and Edenhofer are all the evidence a rational mind needs to conclude that climate alarmism is being used as a Trojan horse to justify the massive new carbon taxes clamored for by powerful progressives like Barack Obama, Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, none of whom have denounced the pro-communist, anti-American sentiments of two of the UN’s top climate officials.

The words of one of those officials revealed that such taxes would be used not for environmental purposes, but to fund the most massive redistribution of wealth in the history of the world, literally trillions of dollars extracted under false pretenses from U.S. taxpayers, and given to the corrupt governments of every undeveloped nation on Earth, all in the guise of “climate aid.”

Progressives in high places are attempting the largest heist in human history, a collusion to exfiltrate unprecedented sums of money from the world’s largest capitalist nation. Why? The answer is obvious—to implement, on a global scale, the mandate set forth in The Communist Manifesto:

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. – Karl Marx

Outraged that Trump dealt their plan to redistribute America’s wealth a major setback when he ditched their precious Paris Climate Accords, progressives would have you believe they’re nothing more than environmentally-concerned Americans who would never even dream of participating in an effort to upend their country’s capitalist system.

Trump knows that’s a big lie. And now, so do you.

No intelligent person can fail to recognize that powerful progressives in this country are using “climate change” as a ruse to fundamentally transform the United States of America. But because the human ego is loathe to admit when it’s been duped, many Americans will continue allowing themselves to be led like sheep into the closing noose of the hammer and sickle. By the time they realize what happened, it will be too late. In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote about a Third Reich propaganda technique called the Big Lie: ‘If you’re going to lie, make it a Big Lie, keep repeating it and people will believe it.’ That’s exactly what he did, and millions of otherwise intelligent Germans believed the Big Lies that were relentlessly repeated. By the time they realized they’d been duped, it was too late.

The following interview was conducted by The Christian Post and has been republished with permission.

How did we get to this point in our country where a child decides what gender they should be? In your opinion, what was the pivot point?

The immediate pivot point was Obergefell v. Hodges. After LGBT activists had redefined marriage, they immediately turned to redefining sex and gender. It’s no coincidence that the Obama Department of Justice/Department of Education “Dear Colleague” letter on bathrooms and locker rooms was issued when it was.

The longer-term pivot has its roots, oddly enough, in second-wave feminism. Chapter 7 of my book, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” goes through this intellectual history. It explains how first-wave feminism was a campaign to liberate women from an overly restrictive concept of gender, so they could be free to fulfill their nature, but it gave way to a movement seeking to make women identical to men.

From the error of inflexible sex stereotypes, our culture swung to the opposite error of denying any important differences between male and female. The result is a culture of androgyny and confusion.

An agenda of nullifying the distinction between men and women might seem opposed to the insistence on the absolute reality of transgender identity—i.e., an inner sense of being truly male or female—yet both start by severing gender from biological sex.

“It’s the children who are now leading us,” the director of mental health for the Childand Adolescent Gender Center at the University of California, San Francisco said in an interview with The Washington Post. The Child and Adolescent Gender Center treats children as young as 3. Have we become so numb as a country and as a people to not see anything wrong [with] this scenario?

I cite that quote in my book. It’s truly amazing. It entirely ignores the reality that children need assistance in the difficult process of sexual maturation. They need parents.

As new gender ideologies are promoted throughout America, the lies will impact not only those who suffer from gender dysphoria, but all children who need to mature in their self-understanding as a boy or girl, man or woman, a potential husband or wife, father or mother.

We should be tolerant—indeed, loving—toward those who struggle with their gender identity, but also be aware of the harm done to the common good, particularly to children, when transgender identity is normalized.

Transgender activists are not merely asking for tolerance or kindness. They are demanding affirmation, not just from adults but from children and adolescents who are already challenged by the process of sexual development.

In a culture where transgender identities are not only affirmed but celebrated, everyone will be compelled to construct their own gender identity, unaided by a common understanding of sex differences and why they matter.

A 2-year-old boy who transitioned in Australia told his mother he changed his mind. Isn’t this a prime example that children should not be allowed to make these decisions?

Children develop best when parents and professionals help them understand and accept their embodied selves as male or female. Chapter 6 of “When Harry Became Sally” focuses on gender dysphoria in children and the experimental therapies that have rapidly become commonplace.

As recently as 2012, The Washington Post reported that “the very idea of labeling young children as transgender is shocking to many people.” Starting a young child on a process of “social transitioning” followed by puberty-blocking drugs was virtually unthinkable not long ago, and the treatment is still largely experimental.

Unfortunately, many activists have given up on caution, let alone skepticism, about drastic treatments. They assert that puberty blockers are safe and reversible, but in fact these drugs carry long-term health risks, and development occurring at age 16 that usually happens around age 10 cannot be considered normal.

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There are psychological consequences, too, since blocking puberty may interfere with the developmental mechanism that normally helps children accept themselves as male or female.

A more cautious therapeutic approach begins by acknowledging that the vast majority of children with gender dysphoria will grow out of it naturally. An effective therapy looks into the reasons for the child’s mistaken beliefs about gender, and addresses the problems that the child believes will be solved if the body is altered.

Many physicians have found that other psychosocial issues usually lie beneath the child’s false assumptions, and thus effective therapy focuses on remedies for those issues. Chapter 6 of my book concludes with case studies of children who received effective therapy that offered strategies for accepting themselves.

Gender-confirmation surgeries are on the rise, but so are reversals, according to Newsweek. What are your thoughts?

The most difficult chapter of the book for me to research and write was the chapter on people who have detransitioned. Chapter 3 presents the stories of several people who found that transitioning didn’t bring the peace and wholeness they sought, but only new problems.

The stories of detransitioners complicate the sunny picture frequently presented in the media. Many of these people recall a feeling of being pushed into transitioning, as if there were no other options, and they wish that medical professionals had made an effort to help them understand the deeper psychological issues that alienated them from their body.

Many regret the permanent damage done to their bodies, and some who transitioned as teenagers believe they were not mature enough to make such consequential decisions. Some feel that their dysphoria resulted from social hostility to people who don’t conform to gender norms or who have same-sex attractions.

In this light, social conservatives (including myself) should take care to be respectful and compassionate toward people who we may disagree with. We should also call on transgender activists to stop trying to silence detransitioners.

As the book went to press, The Telegraph (based in the United Kingdom) ran a report with the headline: “Sex change regret: Gender reversal surgery is on the rise, so why aren’t we talking about it?” The answer to the question is political correctness. But it’s better to be correct than politically correct where human lives are concerned.

You said sex changes are based [on] ideology, not science. How so?

The simple reality is that you can’t change your sex. There is no way to “reassign” sex because sex isn’t “assigned” in the first place. The best biology, psychology, and philosophy all support an understanding of sex as a bodily reality, and of gender as a social manifestation of bodily sex. Biology isn’t bigotry.

The most effective therapies for gender dysphoria do not try to remake the body to conform with thoughts and feelings—which is impossible—but rather to help people find healthy ways to manage their tension and move toward accepting the reality of their bodily selves.

Contrary to the claims of activists, sex isn’t “assigned” at birth. It’s a bodily fact that can be recognized well before birth with ultrasound imaging. The sex of an organism is defined by its organization for sexual reproduction. Secondary differences between the two sexes—attributes that may be visibly altered by hormone treatment—are not what make us male or female.

As I explain in “When Harry Became Sally,” it’s impossible even to make sense of the concept of sex apart from the ways our bodies are organized for reproduction. That organization starts to develop well before birth.

Chromosomal and hormonal pathologies may disrupt normal development, though in fact these abnormalities have essentially nothing to do with transgender ideology—except insofar as activists want to relabel such abnormalities as mere “differences,” in an effort to normalize disorders.

You mentioned that “America is in the midst of what has been called a transgender moment.” What do you mean by this?

The subtitle of my book, “When Harry Became Sally” is “Responding to the Transgender Moment.” Some people think that’s a typo, that it should be “movement,” not “moment.” But I chose “moment” intentionally.

I use “moment” because transgender ideology is not here to stay. It’s a moment that will eventually pass. So, while transgender ideology may appear to be establishing a firm place in our culture, there are signs of defensiveness among its advocates. Activists have to keep patching and shoring up their own beliefs, policing the faithful, coercing heretics, and punishing apostates, because transgender dogmas are so contrary to basic, self-evident truths.

The transgender moment may turn out to be fleeting, but that doesn’t mean we should expect it to fade away on its own. We need to insist on telling the truth, and on saving lives from being irreparably damaged.

Where do we go from here?

As I explain in the book, there is work for everyone to do. We need scholars willing to defend the truth in a loving way. We need medical professionals willing to provide effective alternatives to the transgender clinics. We [need] religious leaders willing to minister to those in need. We need civic leaders willing to stand up to the activists.

What’s at stake in the transgender moment is the human person. If trans activists succeed in their political agenda, our nation’s children will be indoctrinated in a harmful ideology, and some will live by its lies about their own bodies, at great cost to themselves physically, psychologically, and socially. Lives will be ruined, but pointing out the damage will be forbidden. Dissent from the transgender worldview will be punished in schools, workplaces, and medical clinics. Trying to live in accordance with the truth will be made harder.

This doesn’t have to happen. Everyone can play a role in bearing witness to the truth and ministering compassionately to people in pain. For anyone who takes part in this important work, Dr. Paul McHugh offers some advice: “Gird your loins if you would confront this matter. Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle.”

Once upon a time a seasoned political operative ran for President of the United States against a candidate who had virtually no political experience.

She––Democrat Ms. Hillary Clinton––former First Lady of Arkansas, former First Lady of the United States, former U.S. Senator from New York, former Secretary of State under the faux “president” Barack Obama, was clearly the favorite.

Her opponent––Republican Mr. Donald J. Trump––the billionaire builder who lived in the American version of the Palace of Versailles in Manhattan and in several other resplendent homes around the country and the world, who hosted two wildly successful TV shows, who owned casinos and built golf courses and was a favorite of tabloid magazines, and who had been lionized and courted by the Hollywood crowd, the media whores, and both Democrats and Republicans for his generous contributions, was the clear loser.

Ha ha ha sputtered the political experts. The idea that this neophyte, this (pardon the expression) capitalist could go up against a representative of the outgoing Big Government regime––which brought us socialized medicine (Obamacare) and socialized education (Common Core) and 94-million unemployed Americans and strangulating regulations and horrific trade deals and a foreign policy that bowed deeply to our enemies and spit in the faces of our faithful allies––well that just struck the experts as preposterous.

With the powerful Clinton Machine behind her, the endorsement of the outgoing faux “president,” the immense help of rigged-election experts like ACORN, the incalculable assistance of a bought-and-paid-for leftwing media, and with the good-old-reliable votes of feminists and blacks and Hispanics and gays and all the other groups that stupidly believe Democrats have helped them over the past 60 years, Hillary had no competition at all.

THE BEST-KEPT SECRET

The cocky Hillary supporters believed that millions of deplorable Americans failed to notice their candidate’s frequent coughing fits, the help she needed simply to ascend three stairs, her peculiar head-bobbing spasms, the cringe-producing effect of her strident voice, and her frequent absences from the campaign trail, not to mention her promising more of the same socialist-cum-communist policies that had failed so miserably for the previous eight years..

They also failed to realize that her opponent had hired an extremely savvy pollster.

That pollster told candidate Trump, on a daily and sometimes hourly basis, how Americans throughout the country were responding to his America First message. And it was all good. And it was a secret that the entire Trump Team kept to themselves.

Or so they thought. But the information that was so damning for Hillary’s candidacy apparently reached the corrupt upper echelons of Obama’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ), and scared them enough to hatch an illegal, seditious, unconstitutional plot to derail the Trump candidacy and, failing that, the Trump presidency.

For months on end, fake polls, as reported by fake news shills, told us that Hillary was a slam-dunk. Right up to 8 p.m. on the night of November 8, 2016, when the entire leftwing media started to wipe the avalanche of egg yolks dripping down their faces.

Best 2016 Election Night Compilation Video:

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TRYING TO BRING DOWN A PRESIDENT

To those of us who supported Mr. Trump from the beginning––I wrote an article back in 2011 entitled “Trump is Already Running the Country”––it was clear that every now and then in American history, someone comes along to save our country from those who hate it.

FDR is in this category, bolstering America’s spirits through the worst Depression in our history and a devastating World War (although I personally revile Roosevelt for condemning six-million Jews to annihilation when he could and should have bombed the concentration camps in Germany and Poland to which Hitler condemned his defenseless victims).

Abraham Lincoln is in this category, miraculously uniting our country after the ferocious Civil War that almost tore it apart.

President Trump belongs in this category, accomplishing more that is good for America in one year in office than any chief executive in our history––all while the clinically hysterical liberals in the media and among the populace continued to beleaguer, hound, protest, vilify, insult and harass him, and when ill-intentioned actors from Obama’s DOJ and FBI put their malevolent plot into action, a plot that accused both candidate and President Trump of colluding with Russians to swing the election his way.

To this malicious end, they did the following:

Hired British spy Christopher Steele (who admitted in writing that he “hated” candidate Trump) to create a phony story about the Republican candidate being in a Russian hotel engaging is raunchy acts with a prostitute;

Hired the political opposition-research group Fusion GPS to distribute the phony info.

Paid for this sham scenario with multimillions of dollars from both Hillary’s campaign coffers and the Democratic National Committee’s monies;

Went to the judges of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to apply for a search warrant without informing the judges about (1) the Trump-loathing spy’s bias, and (2) who paid for the warrant. By the way, who are these judges and exactly who appointed them???

Obtained the warrant which allowed the partisan hacks from Obama’s DOJ and FBI to conduct a more than year-long collusion investigation which produced NOTHING!

Oops… make that something. It produced hard, cold, concrete, irrefutable, and to my mind indictable evidence that the people who were in collusion were––ta da––the corrupt upper echelon of the DOJ and FBI who lied to the FISA judges, as well as Hillary Clinton who as Sec. of State gave 20 percent of U.S. uranium to the Russians (similar to her husband Bill giving nukes to North Korea and their ideological clone Barack Obama giving nukes to Iran!).

WHAT’S MISSING FROM THIS PICTURE?

For well over a year, we’ve had the fishy FISA memo, former FBI director James Comey being accused of covering up Hillary’s crimes, the witch hunt of President Trump by another former FBI director Robert Mueller, CA Democrat Adam Schiff’s manic attempts to impeach the president, the media’s narcotizing anti-Trump talking points, and the few lone voices––vox clamantis en deserto––in the conservative media, but what do they all have in common? What is missing?

Not outrage…they are all outraged.

Not accusations…the right blames the left and the left blames the right.

Not plain talk…conservative Sean Hannity has been clear as a bell, as are the leftist bought-and-paid-for shills on every leftwing news outlet, both electronic and print.

While all of them pointed fingers, cast blame, railed against the “system” they thought was crooked or biased or partisan, the elephant in the room––the subject they never raised, the person they never mentioned as the arch architect of the entire illegal corrupt plan to derail the Trump presidency––BARACK OBAMA!

Does anyone really believe that FISA warrants can be submitted or obtained by any underling in the American government? Of course not! That request has to come––or at least be approved––directly from the Oval Office.

Does anyone really believe that the anti-Trump talking points, rallies, vigils, disparaging articles, and orchestrated hatred is spontaneous? Of course not! They come directly from groups like Organizing For America, which was formed by the former community organizer Barack Obama with the express intent of dismantling traditional American institutions and converting them into the socialist and communist regimes they most admire.

According to journalist and author Paul Sperry, Obama sent a message to his “troops” saying that he “was heartened by anti-Trump protests. Yes,” says Sperry, “Obama has an army of agitators — numbering more than 30,000— who will fight his Republican successor at every turn of his historic presidency. And Obama will command them from a bunker less than two miles from the White House.”

Ah… the bitterness.

A FEW EXCEPTIONS

To their credit, a few people––so far––have cited Obama as a central player––probably the central player––in the Russian-collusion fiasco. As CanadaFreePress.com editor Judi McLeod has written, “One day after the release of the Memo, we should all be asking, `Where is Obama?’ Why is he so stonily silent…? The answer is that the scurrilous Obama, just like Steele, went into hiding. The Memo proves that the FBI is not just part of a USA intelligence apparatus that systematically spies on its own American citizenry, it paid…for filth completely made up by a foreign agent with whom they were in tight ‘Hate Donald Trump’ league.”

Daniel Greenfield, in an article entitled The Memo Reveals the Coup against America, writes that “the Democrats and the media spent a week lying to the American people about the `memo’”…claiming its release would be damaging to America’s spying and even treasonous. But “they didn’t mean American spying methods––they meant Obama’s spying methods.”

“The memo isn’t treasonous,” Greenfield continues. “It reveals a treasonous effort by the Democrats to use our intelligence agencies to rig an election and overturn the will of the voters. Today, the media and Dems switched from claiming that the memo was full of `classified information’ that might get CIA agents killed to insisting that it was a dud and didn’t matter. Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

And the other night the Fox News moderator Jesse Watters called out Obama for his significant role in this orgy of corruption.

But where are the other voices to identify the virulence––and jealousy––of the anti-Trump minions? And particularly Barack Obama’s role?

As I wrote in a former article, “James Comey and the Stinking Fish Factor”––“Whether it’s in industry or the military or sports or show business, if failure occurs, it’s always the top dog who is accountable. Not the assembly line worker or the buck private or the third baseman who calls the shots, but the one who occupies the ultimate seat of power. Look at what happened at the Democratic National Committee…the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief of Communications, and Chairwoman all resigned because of the hacking that proved the DNC to be both crooked and racist.”

So it is with the putative head of the Democrat Party, Barack Obama. And it’s not just jealousy or ideology that drives his obsession––it’s fear! All the honchos under Obama––John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, John Podesta, Obama himself, the list is long––quake with dread that their own scandals, acts of malfeasance, controversies, and possible illegalities will be unearthed and come to light during the Trump years and they will all be frog-marched straight into Leavenworth…hence the mad quest to frame the president and get him out of office.

They should be afraid. And they should be remorseful for their shabby tactics and constitutional violations. But if Hillary Clinton is any example of the left’s craven sociopathy––and I think she is the prime example––the American public can expect no apologies and no regrets but rather the same evasions, deceptions and lies that the Obama gang raised to an art form during his ignominious eight years in office.

It is doubtful that when candidate Trump promised to “drain the swamp,” he had even an inkling of the vast number of slithering, predatory, reptilian creatures who inhabited that toxic environment. But being the smartest guy in the room, and a quick study at that, you can bet that he will decontaminate the place as swiftly as he pushed through the biggest tax and jobs bill in history.

For that he will gain the eternal gratitude of the American people, a huge majority of the candidates he endorses in the midterms, and a thunderous reelection in 2020.

In his economic dreamland of surrealist juxtapositions and non-sequiturs, with visions free from conscious rationality, General Castro believes that improved state management is the way to save Cuba’s communist system. The hostility toward individual freedoms and success embodied in his economic reform program signals its inevitable failure. The desire for control by the military and the Party of every aspect of Cuban life is the antithesis of the individual freedoms and empowerment necessary to bring about an economic renaissance.

With his characteristic intellectual wit, Cuban writer Carlos Alberto Montaner defines communism as “the time countries waste between capitalism and capitalism.” By this account, Cuba has now wasted six decades of economic development and appears incapable or ignorant of how to change course. The economic platform for the VI Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, revealed ideological bewilderment manifested in absurd and incongruous policymaking.

The Draft Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy – the 32-page document that proposes to chart Cuba’s economic future – affirms that:

“The new economic policy will correspond with the principle that only socialism [i.e. Cuban communism] is capable of conquering the difficulties… and that central planning and not the market will be supreme in the actualization of the economic model.”

The document persistently emphasizes General Castro’s militaristic themes of increased efficiency, discipline, and control. It insists, for example, on setting prices according to the dictates of central planning and insuring that any new “non-state” economic activities (apparently the term “private sector” is not to be spoken) do not lead to the accumulation of wealth. The General is not interested in introducing Deng Xiaoping’s market socialism with Deng’s pronouncement that “to get rich is glorious.”

In Cuba, central planning will be extended to include not only the state and mixed enterprises, but also the allowed forms of non-state activities with “new methods of planning and state control over the economy.”

It is not surprising that Raul Castro and his generals are more comfortable with the chain of command of a centrally planned economy than with the vicissitudes of a market economy. What is baffling is the failure to understand core principles of economic development. They appear to be clueless as to what to do.

To make the point, it is instructive to examine a representative handful of the 205 trades and professions authorized by the state for self-employment (of non-state sector activity) as a centerpiece of General Castro’s “bold” economic reforms to rescue the country’s economy. After much debate and with trepidation the Cuban economic reformers have decided to allow the 500,000 Cubans being fired to solicit permits to become self-employed in activities such as:

Clearly, this bizarre list of permitted private service sector activities will not drive the economic development of the country. Equally revealing is the fact that the Cuban technocrats find it necessary to list the economic activities that will be permitted with such degree of regulation and control.

An impediment to real reforms is simply that without inspired democratic leadership, the set of long-held Marxists economic assumptions will not be swapped for another set of economic beliefs. These are not reforms to unleash the market’s “invisible hand,” but rather to reaffirm the Castros’ clenched fist.

One does not have to be an economist to appreciate, for example, that the refilling of disposable cigarette lighters (permitted occupation # 125) is not an industrial activity that will contribute in any measure to the economic development of Cuba. Measures designed to encourage the domestic manufacturing of disposable lighters would come closer. Continuing with the example, what is needed are economic empowerment measures to encourage the entrepreneurial manufacturing of disposable lighters of high quality and low cost so as to be competitive exporting to world markets. This will not be allowed in Cuba.

In his economic dreamland of surrealist juxtapositions and non-sequiturs, with visions free from conscious rationality, General Castro believes that improved state management is the way to save Cuba’s communist system. The hostility toward individual freedoms and success embodied in his economic reform program signals its inevitable failure.

The desire for control by the military and the Party of every aspect of Cuban life is the antithesis of the individual freedoms and empowerment necessary to bring about an economic renaissance.

General Castro ignores what José Marti emphasized in 1884. During the struggle for Cuban independence from Spain, in a letter rebuking his military commander Máximo Gómez, Marti wrote: “A nation is not founded General, the way one commands an encampment.” The same holds true for the building of a successful economy.

ABOUT JOSE AZEL

José Azel arrived in the U.S. in 1961 from communist Cuba as a 13-year-old political exile with Operation Pedro Pan, the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Dr. Azel earned a Masters Degree in Business Administration and a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Miami, and is author of Mañana in Cuba: The Legacy of Castroism and Transitional Challenges for Cuba, and Reflections on Freedom. He is also a contributor to SFPPR News & Analysis of the online-conservative-journalism center at the Washington-based Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research.

I am a 69 year old proud American who happens to be black. The American Left (Democrats, Hollywood and fake news media) exploit Black History Month as an opportunity to further their lie that America is eternally racist and a hellhole for blacks. BHM should feature the truth that America is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it; regardless of race, color, creed or gender. Blacks are only 12% of the U.S. population. Therefore, black millionaires and billionaires like Oprah, Samuel L Jackson, Colin Kaepernick and countless others confirm my point; white America made these blacks extremely wealthy.

And yet, sadly, most millennial blacks believe the Left’s lie that their opportunities for success are limited. They believe white cops murder black men on sight. They believe white America is obsessed with conceiving dirty tricks to keep blacks down.

It is interesting that the American Left which includes the NAACP and Congressional Black Caucus despises and seeks to destroy successful blacks who bear witness to the greatness of America. I am talking about blacks like world renowned retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, businessman extraordinaire Herman Cain and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Without lowered standards or special concessions due to their skin-color, these blacks achieved success the old fashion way. They earned it.

Imagine driving down a dusty country road on a spring day in the 1950s. You see a dirty little black boy in a field picking cotton. Only in America could that black boy grow up to become one of the most powerful men in the world, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. You will never see the American Left using Justice Thomas’ remarkable American story during BHM to inspire black youths. Leftist only feature blacks whom they claim achieved success in spite of America’s rabid racism or sexism.

The American Left strives to convince all Americans that they are victims of either Christians, conservatives, Republicans, the rich or straight white men. Individuality and self-reliance are as repulsive to Leftists as crossing Dracula the cross. Leftists’ dream is for all Americans to be dependent upon and thereby controlled by big tyrannical government. Leftists want government to force their agenda items down our throats that would never be approved by voters.

A glaring example of Leftists not really giving a rat’s derriere about blacks is the Congressional Black Caucus’ response to Trump announcing in his SOTU that black unemployment is at a record low. Wouldn’t that good news be cause for applause from people who supposedly represent blacks? And yet, the CBC sat stone-faced refusing to applaud with others in the capital hall. It was stomach turning seeing Leftist operative CBC members wearing their little African clothes draped over their shoulders. These clothes are suppose to show CBC members’ super commitment to black Americans. These people (CBC members) are shameless traitors to their fellow black Americans.

Despite Trump reaching out and implementing policies helpful to blacks the evil CBC is hellbent on deceiving black Americans into believing their lie that Trump is racist. One of my brothers is an outspoken black Christian conservative Republican. In his mostly black community and church, my brother boldly challenges blacks to tell him one thing Trump has said or done to prove Trump is racist. They can not. Like Sheep-ple, blacks in my brother’s church and community believe Trump is racist solely because Democrats, Hollywood and fake news media have told them Trump is racist.

Democrats must keep blacks believing America is a hellhole for blacks; believing their lie that Trump and all conservatives/republicans are racist. Democrats must keep their lie alive that blacks’ only hope is to continue monolith voting for Democrats. The problem is blacks’ brain-dead loyalty to Democrats has reaped direr consequences. Blacks murder each other in record numbers in cities controlled by Democrats for decades. Blacks are engaged in self genocide due to disproportionate high numbers of abortions. High numbers of fatherless households births epidemic numbers of blacks joining gangs, school dropouts, black on black crime, incarcerations and poverty.

Democrats are insidious enablers; nurturing problems in black communities by lowering cultural, moral and intellectual standards for us in the name of compassion. After all, according to Leftists, we black folks ain’t too bright. Democrats relieve blacks of any accountability or responsibility for their failure or success; claiming our fate rest solely in the hands of white America. Notice how Democrats/Leftists are always advocating lowering the bar and giving us free stuff; addicting us to government freebies.

I am applauded by the Democrats’ bigotry of lowered expectations regarding my fellow black Americans. As a black man I can say this. Our problem is not whitey persecuting us. Our problems are rooted in blacks allowing their loyalty to Democrats to morally bankrupt our communities. It was amazing seeing many black clergy abandoning the Bible’s view of sex same marriage because Obama was for same sex marriage.

If Leftists were honest, they would really call BHM their “America Still Sucks for Blacks Month”. Every February, Leftists use BHM to guilt-trip a new generation of whites and convince blacks to continue sleeping with their enemies by voting for Democrats.

Blacks like me who love their country and realize the obvious blessing of being born an American are excoriated by Leftists. Leftists call us Uncle Toms suffering with Stockholm Syndrome.

But here is the truth.

American is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it. To my fellow blacks, reject the American Lefts’ daily-you-are-a-victim excrement. Pursue your American dream via education, hard work and right choices. Pure and simple.

Social Media Neutrality Panel at The Newseum in Washington DC

Fighting for Diversity of Voice Online

By Jim Hoft
Release: February 1, 2018

Washington, D.C. – On Tuesday, February 6, 2018, at 1:00 pm (ET) at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. thought leaders and prominent voices in alternative media will gather for a panel discussion on social media neutrality and the fight for diversity of voices online. The event will feature several prominent online conservative and moderate voices who have been impacted by social media bias, shadow banning and other methods meant to silence voices and limit readers and viewers access to information. Panelists will discuss political bias by Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and by search engines such as Google.

Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit has organized a conference of “thought leaders and prominent voices in alternative media for a panel discussion on social media neutrality and the fight for diversity of voices online.”

Washington, D.C. – On Tuesday, February 6, 2018, at 1:00 pm (ET) at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. thought leaders and prominent voices in alternative media will gather for a panel discussion on social media neutrality and the fight for diversity of voices online. The event will feature several prominent online conservative and moderate voices who have been impacted by social media bias, shadow banning and other methods meant to silence voices and limit readers and viewers access to information. Panelists will discuss political bias by Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and by search engines such as Google.

A Harvard University study published on August 16, 2017, analyzed both mainstream and social media coverage of the 2016 election cycle. The study clearly shows that modern conservatives in America today have wholeheartedly rejected the liberal mainstream media. The 2016 election cycle was the first election cycle where conservatives used alternative media news sources to gather information rather than turning to traditional mainstream outlets. Conservative Americans abandoned the mainstream media in 2016 and will not be returning anytime soon. This paradigm shift forced left-wing tech-giants to take action.

Tech giants today understand they have the ability to influence what information consumers see through their complex, and non-public, algorithms. Often this power is abused. Several conservative outlets, and countless individuals have been targeted, shadow-banned, and silenced by these tech giants. By silencing these voices, big-tech is limiting information available to the American public and is a direct assault on First Amendment rights.

The time for transparency is now!

Tuesday’s panelists include Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit, John Hawkins of Right Wing News, Pamela Gellerof The Geller Report, Margaret Howell of Rightside Broadcasting, tech entrepreneur Marlene Jaeckel and special video remarks by Michelle Malkin and James O’Keefe. More panelists to be announced. Panelists will discuss their experiences with social media targeting, the impact it has on the American public and the chilling effect on free speech.

Under the hashtag #StrongInHijab, Islamic supremacists and their willing gophers on the left — middle-class Western feminists — instituted “World Hijab Day” yesterday. In one of the most pathetic and destructive displays of virtue signalling, non-Muslim women were urged to wear the garment of oppression, subjugation and misogyny. While women are fighting and dying for their most basic rights, left-wing goons are working to impose the misogyny of the sharia.

No cares if you wear the hijab. No one cares if you wear purple hair, for that matter. The real world recognition day should be in tribute to women who are forced to wear the hijab, beaten and/or arrested if they don’t. World Hijab Day is a stunning indictment of the hypocrisy of the evil left as much as choosing the sharia-promoting, forced marriage advocate Linda Sarsour for their leader. The real “feminists” are fighting for a fraction, a sliver of the freedoms their Western “sisters” enjoy. One campaign fighting against the enforced hijab in Iran set up by Ms Alinejad is My Stealthy Freedom. It is “dedicated to Iranian women inside the country who want to share their ‘stealthily’ taken photos without the veil,” and aims to be a “living archive” of their fight.

As David Kurten points out, punishments for removing a hijab can be brutal – Islamic regimes are known to physically beat women for non-compliance with their dress codes. This is true not only in the Middle East, but increasingly on a local level in the West.

A brave headteacher in a London primary school recently took action to ban children under 8 from wearing hijabs in her school. The school is in an area of east London which has undergone almost total population replacement from white working-class 50 years ago to mostly people of Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslim origin today. The response of the local community was to organize a campaign of intimidation against her until she backed down.

Remember: this is the country the Democrats are fighting for, opposing President Trump’s efforts to stop them from nuclear arming.

TEHRAN CRACKS DOWN ON HIJAB PROTESTERS: POLICE ARREST 29 WOMEN FOR APPEARING IN PUBLIC WITHOUT A HEADSCARF AND ACCUSE ‘FOREIGNERS’ OF INCITING CALLS TO BAN THE COMPULSORY ISLAMIC DRESS CODE

Some 29 women arrested for taking off their hijab in public in Tehran, Iran

Police are cracking down on protests, imposing large bails on women arrested

Vida Movahed, whose protest went viral, was held in a Tehran jail for a month

Women are protesting the compulsory headscarf, which is religious law in Iran

By Sara Malm For Mailonline, 2 February 2018:

Tehran police have arrested 29 women for appearing in public without a headscarf as protests against the dress code in force since the Islamic revolution of 1979 intensify, Iranian media reported Friday.

Those arrested were accused of public order offences and referred to the state prosecutor’s office, Iranian nnews agencies reported without elaborating.

Chief prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri had played down the escalating protests on Wednesday, saying they were ‘trivial’ and ‘childish’ moves possibly incited by foreigners.

The original: Vida Movahed, 31, was arrested after taking off her hijab in public and standing on a telecoms box in Tehran in December – inspiring others to do the same

Unprecedented images more than a dozen women of protesting the same way had been widely shared on social media.

Montazeri said those flouting ‘hijab’ rules – which require headscarves and modest clothing – must have been encouraged by outsiders.

But even religiously conservative Iranians have voiced support for the protests, with many saying that religious rules should be a personal choice.

At least two photos shared on Twitter on Wednesday showed women in traditional black chador robes, standing on pillar box with signs supporting freedom of choice for women.

One held a sign reading: ‘I love my hijab but I’m against compulsory hijab.

Together: Two young women hold hands as they copy Vida Movahed in holding their headscarves out on sticks
Read more:Brave: A woman stands on a snowy street, holding her white scarf out in protest

On Monday, a woman named locally as Nargess Hosseini, was arrested after standing on an electricity box in central Tehran, waving her head scarf in front of her.

Journalist and campaigner Masih Alinejad, the founder of the White Wednesdays and My Stealthy Freedom movements, which fights the compulsory hijab in Iran, has claimed that Ms Hosseini’s bail has been set at a record-high level to detain others from protesting.

‘While the law imposes a maximum of $12 or two months of jail time, the court has recently asked for a bail of $125,000 to release one of the newly detained women,’ Ms Alinejad tweeted Thursday.

A prominent human rights lawyer told AFP on Tuesday that one of the detained women had her bail set at more than $100,000 (80,000 euros).

Ms Hosseini was copying the brave stance of Vida Movahed, a 31-year-old mother-of-one whose protest and subsequent arrest a month ago is thought to have started the movement.

A video showing her calmly waving her white hijab tied to a stick above the crowds in the Iranian capital, went viral on social media.

Ms Movahed, who became known as The Girl In Enghelab Street, was released over the weekend, after spending a month in custody with her 20-month-daughter.

Being brave: Another Iranian woman with bright turquoise hair has taken off her head scarf and holds it out while standing in silence.

A young woman filmed during her protest revealed that she was encouraged by passersby, who later helped her and stopped police from arresting her

Two for one: Two young women are seen holding out their headscarves at an unknown location in Iran this week

Copying: A woman as an unidentified street in Iran holds her white hijab out on a stick, mimicking the stance of Ms Movahed in solidarity and to protest enforced headscarves

Thousands of social media users shared messages of support after her disappearance, dubbing her the ‘Girl of Enghelab Street’ after the area in central Tehran where she staged the protest.

Iranian activists started a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #WhereIsShe, demanding that the government reveal what happened to her.

The campaign eventually went global both on and offline, with protesters at the recent Women’s March in the U.S. waving placards with the slogan.

Ms Movahed was protesting Iran’s Islamic law, which requires women to wear a headscarf and long clothes that cover the arms and legs.

The Islamic dress code, in place since the 1979 revolution, considers veiling obligatory for any female above 13 in Iran and says they should cover themselves from head to toe while disavowing any figure-hugging dress.

Breaking the rules can result in fines of up to 500,000 rials (£17) and up to two months in prison.

An unidentified woman stands on a snowy street holding her headscarf in the air using a stick

All for one: A woman stands on a concrete bench holding out her hijab as other women, with their heads covered, walk past behind her

The 31-year-old was praised after a video of her protest went viral on social media, but she was reportedly arrested shortly afterwards

A young woman filmed during her protest revealed that she was encouraged by passersby, who later helped her and stopped police from arresting her

Two for one: Two young women are seen holding out their headscarves at an unknown location in Iran this week

Copying: A woman as an unidentified street in Iran holds her white hijab out on a stick, mimicking the stance of Ms Movahed in solidarity and to protest enforced headscarves

Join the force: After initially being shared by human rights campaigners in Iran, the fight to find out the fate of the Girl of Enghelab Street went global

Support: Two participants in the Women’s March in Boston, US hold up placards with the campaign slogan

Reformist lawmaker Soheila Jelodarzadeh said the protests were a reaction to the harsh policies of the past.

‘Once upon a time we imposed restriction on women and put them under unnecessary pressure and that provoked these protests with women taking off their headscarves in the streets,’ she told ILNA.

‘It’s the result of our mistakes.’

President Hassan Rouhani, who came to power in 2013 promising a more moderate stance, has previously said it is not the job of police to enforce religious rules such as those forcing women to cover their hair.

But in April 2016, officials said there were 7,000 undercover morality police reporting on things like ‘bad hijab’ – a blanket term usually referring to un-Islamic dress by women.

Figures are rarely given, but Tehran’s traffic police said in late 2015 they had dealt with 40,000 cases of bad hijab in cars, where women often let their headscarves drop around their necks.

These cases generally led to fines and a temporary impounding of the vehicle.

THE GIRL OF ENGHELAB STREET: WHAT SHE STOOD FOR

The woman who took her hijab off in public and waved it like a white flag in central Tehran, was protesting the Islamic dress code enforced on women in Iran.

The woman, reportedly a 31-year-old mother, broke the law by exposing her hair in public, risking arrest and fines.

The Girl of Enghelab Street, nicknamed so because of the name of the road where she took her head-scarf off in protest, has spurred many other women in Iran to do the same.

Missing: The unnamed woman was taking part in a women’s movement called White Wednesdays, which protests the enforcing of strict Islamic dress codes in Iran

Since her protest on December 27, she has become a symbol for Iranian women’s fight against compulsory hijab, with many sharing the video of her protest on social media and illustrations of her brave stand.

She has become the ‘poster child’ for the White Wednesdays movement, which encourages Iranian women and those who support their plight to take off their hijab, and was started by journalist and campaigner Masih Alinejad.

White is one of the most common colours of headscarves in Iran, which only allows ‘modest’ shades such as white, brown or black.

Another campaign fighting against the enforced hijab in Iran set up by Ms Alinejad is My Stealthy Freedom.

It is ‘dedicated to Iranian women inside the country who want to share their “stealthily” taken photos without the veil’, and aim to be a ‘living archive’ of their fight.